Biotechnology has experienced the explosive growth once experienced in the field of computers a couple of decades ago. Progresses in the fields of genetics, biology, chemistry, biochemistry and bioinformatics have major impact on growth of biotechnology. Biotechnology has found its application in the field of food, agriculture, healthcare, forestry etc. However, its role in healthcare has found favour among the public. Healthcare biotech innovations like recombinant vaccines, genetic tests, monoclonal antibodies, novel diagnostic tests are positively impacting the healthcare development. These innovations have highly influenced the drug development sector.

Biologics: Golden Era

Nowadays, a whole range of biotechnological arsenal is being harnessed towards the development of drugs to cater to various unmet needs. Continuous progress is being made in understanding the underlying disease mechanism. The use of biologics has shown tremendous increase in the past years.

However, the biotechnology companies face various challenges of which the rapidly changing industrial landscape is the foremost. A flurry of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) led by spiralling R&D costs is becoming a common sight. Ever increasing R&D costs and dry pipeline in the pharmaceutical industry is propelling the M&A activities with the biotech companies giving birth to biopharmaceuticals.

Ushering Revolution

Advances in genetic engineering have paved way for a new era of personalised medicine. This novel therapeutic concept involves patient-focussed treatment. Based on genetics, effective screening, diagnostics, preventive vaccinations, the concept offers customised treatment to the patients. This personalised approach is likely to gain popularity in future as it gives immense confidence to the healthcare professionals to design treatment suited for the patients needs.

Biologics have witnessed immense growth in the past decade and currently occupy around 10.0% of the pharmaceutical drug sales in 2005. Biotech drugs have experienced strong growth in the past years. Oncology and rheumatoid arthritis drugs have enjoyed tremendous growth in the last couple of years. The global pharmaceutical industry has experienced dry pipeline but biologics from the biotech pipeline has spurred the growth of the biotech industry. This has been further enhanced by major pharma-biotech alliances. 2005 and 2006 has seen various consolidation activities in the pharma-biotech arena.

The symbiotic relationship between pharmaceutical and biotech companies is being more of a common trend in the industry. Biotech’s are increasingly becoming service, technology, molecules and other technical know-how providers while the pharmaceutical companies finance the operations. As the line between pharmaceutical and biotech is blurring owing to these strong alliances, is the industry ushering in the biopharmaceutical era?

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